Cylinder lock

ABSTRACT

A cylinder safety lock the plug of which carries a plurality of longitudinally extending parallel resiliently flexible blade like elements arranged in a substantially cylindrical squirrel cagelike fashion and engageable in their free unstrained rest position in the absence of a key with corresponding grooves of an inner coaxially positioned core portion of the cylinder of the lock to hold said plug against rotation; said blade-like elements being engageable with an inserted key for being deflected radially outwards either into an annular space left between said cylinder and core for unlocking said rotor when the key is correct or beyond said intermediate space into corresponding grooves of said stator to still lock said rotor when the inserted key is incorrect.

United States Patent 1191 Lipschutz 1 51 Dec. 24, 1974 CYLINDER LOCK [75] Inventor: Paul Lipschutz, Croissy sur Seine,

France [73] Assignee: Societe dExploitation des Brevets Neiman, Neuilly S/Seine, France 22 Filed: May 17, 1973 21 Appl. No.: 361,109

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data May 17, 1972 France ..'72.217544 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 12/1927 Schlage 70/365 10/1968 Keefer 3,621,682 11/1971 Schmidt 70/364 R FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 615,008 l0/l926 France 70/366 595,730 7/1925 France 70/362 Primary ExaminerRobert L. Wolfe Attorney, Agent, or FirmNolte and Nolte [57] ABSTRACT A cylinder safety lock the plug of which carries a plurality of longitudinally extending parallel resiliently flexible blade like elements arranged in a substantially cylindrical squirrel cage-like fashion and engageable in their free unstrained rest position in the absence of a key with corresponding grooves of an inner coaxially positioned core portion of the cylinder of the lock to hold said plug against rotation; said blade-like elements being engageable with an inserted key for being deflected radially outwards either into an annular space left between said cylinder and core for unlocking said rotor when the key is correct or beyond said intermediate space into corresponding grooves of said stator to still look said rotor when the inserted key is incorrect.

10 Claims, 10 Drawing Figures j/ fl'/// ///////I/// PAIEMEMEM H, 3,855,829

Ell/111g CYLINDER LOCK The present invention relates to a key-operated safety cylinder lock with a large number of coded combinations and offering over the conventional prior art known cylinder locks of the pin tumbler or disk tum- .bler kind the advantage of a greater simplicity and a faster assembly work without requiring the high accuracy or precision manufacture required for these conventional cylinder locks.

A pin tumbler cylinder lock consists of a cylinder casing or shell, of a barrow-like or plug-shaped substantially cylindrical inner plug, and of pluralities of pairs of registering cylindrical pins slidably located in said cylinder and plug, respectively, and biased radially inwards by corresponding resilient means. There is accordingly provided for every combination element, four parts, namely an inner tumbler pin, an outer tumbler pin adapted to be aligned in registering relationship with said inner tumbler pin for a given angular position of said plug, a spring and a latch member for locking the whole assembly. 1

The manufacture of such a lock is expensive in view of the accuracy (or precision making) required in the production of the parts and also owing to the delicate workmanship (or operating steps) required for assembling the whole.

The disk or plate tumbler lock is of a significantly simpler construction than said pin tumbler lock. Such a structural simplification is however achieved at the expense of a lesser effectiveness and a lower locking reliability. This type of lock has for every combination element three parts only, namely, one plate or disk member, a spring and an element holding said plate member against motion.

The assembly of the dish or plate tumbler lock is difficult since, as in the pin tumbler lock it also involves handling very small component parts.

The present invention is based upon a new and improved principle of providing a lock with blade-like elements. One main object of the invention is to provide a cheap lock which provides a large number of combinations. This lock while being very effective requires neither a high precision for its manufacture nor any handling of tiny component parts.

The number of component parts forming this new lock is considerably reduced over those required for a pin tumbler cylinder lock and for a disk or plate tumbler cylinder lock.

One of the main characterizing features of the new lock consists in that one single member provided with blade-like elements secured to the plug performs the combined functions of locking and resilient biasing action towards the rest position when the key is removed.

Embodiments of the invention are illustrated in the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a view in longitudinal section of the lock according to the invention with the key fully inserted and the plug in unlocked condition;

FIG. 2 is a cross-section through the lock of FIG. 1 taken upon the line Il-ll of that Figure;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an embodiment of a possible construction of the plug provided with a cylindrical member carrying the blade-like elements;

FIG. 4 shows a fragmentary longitudinal sectional view of the lock with an inserted wrong key unable to unlock or free the rotor for rotation;

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view of the plug taken upon the line VV of FIG. 4 and showing in particular the position of a bladelike element remaining in looking position in the presence of a wrong key;

FIG. 6 is a fragmentary longitudinal sectional view of the lock, the key having been removed and the bladelike elements being in their free released position;

FIG. 7 is a cross-section taken upon the line VIIVII of FIG. 6 and illustrating the position of one of said blade-like elements;

FIG. 8 is an outside elevational view of an alternative embodiment or modification of the plug carrying the blade-like elements;

FIG. 9 is a cross-section through the key-operated portion of the plug, showing an open recess provided endwise in said plug portion andformed with a flattened portion for being rotatably driven by the inserted key; and

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a separate blade element carrying part.

In FIG. 1 is clearly seen the cylinder 1 formed with a cavity 2 provided with a cylindrical inner core portion 4 guidingly engageable by resiliently flexible strips which form a unitary, substantially cylindrical gratinglike skeleton structure. Alternatively the strips may be formed independently and be secured by any convenient means to a plug 9 for movement with the plug, the plug being rotatably mounted within the bore provided in the end portion of the cylinder. Alternatively to being resiliently flexible, the strips could be pivotally or otherwise movably connected to the rotor and biased by separate resilient means co-operating with said blade-like elements.

The resilient strips 6, 6", 6", 6"" are bent radially inwards at their ends to form a substantially radially inward directed projection of selectively variable length or size to form a dog or the like catch element for circumferentially aligning said strips in a same cylindrical surface located within the intermediate annular gap or space 2 left between the outer cylindrical shell or casing portion 1 of the cylinder and said inner core portion 4, when said dogs 7 exactly correspond to the positions and depths of the notches 7" formed on the cylindrical key shank 8.

The shape and size of the cavity 2 enables the rotation of the plug and of the assembly with the strips within the cylinder.

The cylinder body portion or outer casing 1 is formed with grooves or like recesses such as 3 the number of which is for instance equal to that of the number of strips 6', etc., which may be received therein when they are pushed radially outwards by the key 8 and in particular by those cylindrical portions of this key which are devoid of notches 7" or provided with too shallow notches, i.e., notches of insufficient depth.

When the key 8'is withdrawn or when the plug does not present its strips in front of corresponding notches 3 of the outer cylinder casing I, the strips move back to their release positions as shown in FIG. 6 wherein is shown one strip 6' positioned within a groove 3' formed in the inner core 4 of the cylinder in confronting relation with a groove 3 of the outer cylindrical casing 1 of the cylinder, which core groove 3' therefore locks the plug to prevent rotation thereof.

FIG. 7 clearly shows the position of one strip 6 within the core notch 3'.

Therefore, in order that the rotor may be unlocked, the following conditions or requirements must be met or complied with:

1. the key 8 is fully inserted into the lock.

2. the notches 7" of the key 8, in view of their depth, lift the strips 6', 6", 6", 6"", etc., by a distance corresponding exactly to the height or length of the dogs 7 so as to cylindrically align all of the strips 6, etc., within the annular relatively narrow gap 2 of the cylinder, defined between the outer cylindrical casing l and the inner cylindrical core 4 of the cylinder for allowing free rotation of the plug.

3. the notches 7" of the key 8 must be located exactly in registering relation to the dogs 7 of the strips 6, etc. corresponding to the shape and depth of the notches 7" of the key and the dogs 7 may be provided at various mutually differing positions along the longitudinal generating lines or direction of said strips (which may therefore be of mutually differing lengths).

It is thus conceivable that there is thereby available a new variable factor to make the key code more complicated, which code depends in particular on the following parameters:

1. the lengths of the strips 6', etc.;

2. the number of strips;

3. the azimuthal distribution of the strips about the longitudinal axis of the lock;

4. the size of the dogs 7;

5. the longitudinal distribution of the dogs with respect to their positions along the longitudinal lock axis;

6. the shapes of these dogs 7;

7. the arbitrary or selectively variable shape of the drive cavity 10 within the plug 9.

in FIGS. 1 and 2 for instance, there is shown a cylinder 1, 4 formed with five grooves 3, 3' provided in the casing 1 and plug 4 together with a plurality of five strips 6', etc. It is however obvious that it is always possible without departing from the scope of the invention to provide a cylinder with three, six, eight or more grooves and a plug with two, three, four or more strips, provided that the distribution of the latter correspond for an angular orientation thereof to the positions of the grooves 3, 3' of the cylinder or of those particular grooves which have been selected for a given code combination. It is conceivable that the number of combinations may be very large and the security or safety offered by the lock of the invention is accordingly very high as is its reliability of dependability.

In particular in FIGS. 2 and of the accompanying drawings, there are shown V-shaped dogs 7 of strips to facilitate the rotation of the key and the positioning of the strips. A half round or ogival shape may however also be used. The radially inner bottom portion 7" of the key 8 is shown in FIG. 2 as being of substantially flat configuration but it may also assume a curved shape.

The driving of the plug is effected by the end tip 8' of the cylindrical key 8, which tip is formed for instance with a flattened portion 7 which is engageable with and adaptable to a complementary cavity or open recess 10 of mating shape provided in the plug 9 as shown in cross-section in FIG. 9. It is obvious that the several possible various shapes and positions of the plug drive portion offers an additional variety of combinations corresponding to different sets of keys. For all these sets, however, the end tip 8' of the key 8 is shaped into a conical or tapered portion 8a to facilitate insertion into the lock irrespective of the actual angular orientation of the key or lock.

Due to the very large number of combinations possible with such a lock, the required manufacturing precision is relatively moderate since it would be sufficient to give every strips 6, etc., and every groove 3, 3' characteristic features such that the deformation or deflection of the strips out of the locked position allows a tolerance of a few tenths of millimeters, which accuracy is very easily attained with an economical manufacture.

Since the making of a cage-like strip-holder such as shown in FIG. 3 through punching or cutting with a suitable press may require expensive tools or implements, it is possible for more reduced series production and investments to use the alternative embodiment shown in FIGS. 8 and 10 wherein the rotor drive portion 9 is fitted, through assembling, setting, staking or crimping, riveting, cottering, welding, brazing or soldering carried out on connecting lug portions 12, with pitch-fork like members 11 carrying a strip 6' between the prong-like legs of member 11 and connected endwise for example integrally with the cross bracing portion of said member. Such strip holders 11 are still more easily made with respect to shape and size according to requirements.

In all these embodiments, the manufacture through moulding of plastics material or through precision casting of suitable alloys of plug 9 and cylinder 11 still adds or contributes to the intended saving without impairing quality.

The manufacture of the cage-like strip-holder 6 (FIG. 3) or of separate or independent strips 11 may use special manufacturing processes and methods without departing from the principle of the invention.

Finally the assembling of the strips and the plug as well as the mounting of the lock avoid tricky handling and precision adjusting or fitting steps.

What is claimed is:

l. A safety cylinder lock comprising a hollow cylinder, a key-responsive inner cylindrical plug member rotatably mounted within said cylinder and rotatable by a removable key formed with notches and insertable into said plug member, and key-operated locking means carried by said plug member and releasably engageable with said cylinder, wherein the improvement consists in that said cylinder comprises an outer cylindrical casing portion and an inner substantially cylindrical core portion at least partially co-extensive in coaxial relationship with said outer casing portion to leave therebetween an intermediate annular space, the lateral peripheral surface of said inner core portion being formed with a number of circumferentially spaced grooves whereas said locking means comprise resiliently flexible strips made fast with said rotor member and extending in generally parallel relation to the longitudinal axis of said lock and to said grooves, said strips being arranged according to an at least approximately cylindrical configuration coaxially surrounding said cylinder core portion and fitted with clearance in said annular intermediate space to be rotatable therein, said strips being circumferentially distributed in spaced relationship to be on the one hand removably engageable in their free unstrained rest positions with at least some of said grooves provided in said cylinder core portion to hold said plug member against rotation when said key is removed, and on the other hand located in their resiliently radially outward deflected positions in a same substantially cylindrical surface within said intermediate annular space in a given rotary postion of said rotor member to be disengaged from said cylinder core portion and allow free rotation of said plug member, each strip being formed with a radially inward projecting catch element engageable with said key in the fully inserted position of the latter for moving said strips out of and into said grooves.

2. A device according to claim 1, wherein said key has a substantially cylindrical shank portion formed with said operative notches.

3. A device according to claim 1, whererin said key has a shank portion of a substantially cruciform crosssectional contour.

4. A device according to claim 1, wherein the inner wall of said outer cylinder casing portion is formed with longitudinally extending, circumferentially distributed spaced grooves registering with corresponding grooves, respectively, of said cylinder core portion and adapted to receive said strip means therein when deflected radially outwards by an inserted wrong key to hold said plug member against rotation.

5. A device according to claim 1, wherein each one of said strips is integrally formed with a free radially inward bent end portion forming said catch element.

6. A device according to claim 5, wherein said strips are of differing lengths.

7. A device according to claim 1, wherein said catch elements are positioned at different locations in the longutidinal direction of said strips.

8. A device according to claim 1, comprising a squirrel-cage like holder for said strips which are connected endwise with one end portion of said cage and located between the cage bars, respectively, said cage being secured to said plug member.

9. A device according to claim 1, wherein each one of said strips is integrally endwise with the cross brace portion of a pitch fork-shaped part secured with the endsof its prong-like side legs to said plug member.

10. A device according to claim 1, wherein said rotor is formed endwise with a non-cylindrical open recess for accommodating a complementarily shaped tip portion of said key in the inserted position of the latter for operative connection and driving engagement with said rotor member. 

1. A safety cylinder lock comprising a hollow cylinder, a keyresponsive inner cylindrical plug member rotatably mounted within said cylinder and rotatable by a removable key formed with notches and insertable into said plug member, and key-operated locking means carried by said plug member and releasably engageable with said cylinder, wherein the improvement consists in that said cylinder comprises an outer cylindrical casing portion and an inner substantially cylindrical core portion at least partially co-extensive in coaxial relationship with said outer casing portion to leave therebetween an intermediate annular space, the lateral peripheral surface of said inner core portion being formed with a number of circumferentially spaced grooves whereas said locking means comprise resiliently flexible strips made fast with said rotor member and extending in generally parallel relation to the longitudinal axis of said lock and to said grooves, said strips being arranged according to an at least approximately cylindrical configuration coaxially surrounding said cylinder core portion and fitted with clearance in said annular intermediate space to be rotatable therein, said strips being circumferentially distributed in spaced relationship to be on the one hand removably engageable in their free unstrained rest positions with at least some of said grooves provided in said cylinder core portion to hold said plug member against rotation when said key is removed, and on the other hand located in their resiliently radially outward deflected positions in a same substantially cylindrical surface within said intermediate annular space in a given rotary postion of said rotor member to be disengaged from said cylinder core portion and allow free rotation of said plug member, each strip being formed with a radially inward projecting catch element engageable with said key in the fully inserted position of the latter for moving said strips out of and into said grooves.
 2. A device according to claim 1, wherein said key has a substantially cylindrical shank portion formed with said operative notches.
 3. A device according to claim 1, whererin said key has a shank portion of a substantially cruciform cross-sectional contour.
 4. A device according to claim 1, wherein the inner wall of said outer cylinder casing portion is formed with longitudinally extending, circumferentially distributed spaced grooves registering with corresponding grooves, respectively, of said cylinder core portion and adapted to receive said strip means therein when deflecTed radially outwards by an inserted wrong key to hold said plug member against rotation.
 5. A device according to claim 1, wherein each one of said strips is integrally formed with a free radially inward bent end portion forming said catch element.
 6. A device according to claim 5, wherein said strips are of differing lengths.
 7. A device according to claim 1, wherein said catch elements are positioned at different locations in the longutidinal direction of said strips.
 8. A device according to claim 1, comprising a squirrel-cage like holder for said strips which are connected endwise with one end portion of said cage and located between the cage bars, respectively, said cage being secured to said plug member.
 9. A device according to claim 1, wherein each one of said strips is integrally endwise with the cross brace portion of a pitch fork-shaped part secured with the ends of its prong-like side legs to said plug member.
 10. A device according to claim 1, wherein said rotor is formed endwise with a non-cylindrical open recess for accommodating a complementarily shaped tip portion of said key in the inserted position of the latter for operative connection and driving engagement with said rotor member. 